Former Teesside Cabinet Minister Mo Mowlam has launched an attack on her own Labour Party - branding it sleazier than the Tories.

Ms Mowlam accused Tony Blair of neglecting Britain's real problems, throwing away the constitution and turning himself into a president.

Ms Mowlam, who was Labour member for Redcar and a former Cabinet Minister until last June, criticised her party's performance and the Government's record.

Writing in a Sunday newspaper, she said she now finds it "harder and harder" to defend the Labour Government.

The former Redcar MP said that when Labour won power in 1997, there was much hope and much excitement.

She said there was a feeling after 18 years of Tory rule, that Britain was about to have a new beginning and this was a feeling shared right across the country.

But instead, she said, there had been disappointment and sleaze.

In the first two years, despite sticking to Tory spending plans, she believed progress had been made.

However, after the second election victory last summer, she had expected to see further progress in health and education and dealing with the ever-worsening transport crisis.

"But what has happened?" demanded Ms Mowlam.

"We have sleaze - the almost impossible has happened. New Labour is seen as sleazier than the last Tory Government.

"Number 10 and the Treasury are still arguing about who is in control. What is happening about the euro? Who knows? Who seems to care?"

During her last year or two in Westminster, the former Redcar MP repeatedly complained of a whispering campaign against her and alleged that senior colleagues were spreading rumours and damaging reports against her.

Ms Mowlam claimed the Prime Minister had "thrown away the British constitution and seems to see himself as our President".

"He is embracing international politics with such enthusiasm you would have been forgiven for thinking that he is fed up with the many domestic problems that this country faces."

Ms Mowlam said the Prime Minister seemed to indicate that he had more sympathy with the wishes of Washington "and their reckless attitude to Iraq" than he does to his own party or even his Cabinet colleagues.

Ms Mowlam was Minister for the Cabinet until she retired last summer.

Now she says the implications of military action against Iraq are immense and that Britain seems to be "drifting inevitably into an offensive war".